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Bhubaneswar: Odisha is facing an acute shortage of teachers to teach science and mathematics in schools. Worried over the situation, the state government has urged the Centre to relax the minimum qualification for recruitment of teachers as stipulated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The state government has been in a fix over recruitment of teachers in schools as the number of trained teachers produced in the state is very low compared to the requirement, official sources said.

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan high court on Monday issued notices to the state government, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE), Allen Career Institute, Kota and Shiv Jyoti School, Kota among others over functioning of "unrecognized" private coaching institutes in the state especially in Kota in an "institutionalized" manner in the name of preparing students for admission to IITs and medical colleges and subverting school education.

MYSORE: The rate of school dropouts is high among children from Muslim community in Mysore city. Education officials attribute it to "poverty, illiteracy among parents and local environment". S Chandrapatil, deputy project coordinator at Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), claimed that the north education block has the highest number of dropouts. Here, majority of the students are from Muslim families. As many as 1,338 students studying in Class VI, VII and VIII have quit learning to work as per a joint survey report made by the members of an NGO and the education department.

CHENNAI: When there is no dearth of schools, students, teachers or infrastructure in the country, when numbers show increasing enrolments, why is it that Indian students lack skills even after graduation? The problem is a combination of factors — quality of teachers, actual teaching time, student- teacher ratio, method of testing and lack of political will to correct the system, said Vimala Ramachandran, national fellow and professor at National University for Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi.

NAGPUR: At least 37 schools (see box) in Nagpur district are under the education department scanner for being 'unrecognized'. Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act every school, regardless of the board it is affiliated to, needs to be recognized by the state education department. Any school not having the official recognition, also known as the no-objection certificate (NOC), is an illegal entity and must be shut down.

AURANGABAD: For the last two years, the children of Dattawadi and Ramnagar Vasti in Vaijapur taluka have to undertake an arduous task each day to seek education. They wake up early to trek for over an hour to cover a 4-km distance, before they make it to the nearest school. Often they have to wade through waterlogged areas during monsoon.

BANGALORE: While the blame game has begun on safety and security in school, the government has a huge role to play.

The Karnataka Education Act clearly specifies that it's the duty of government officials like the Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI) and Block Education Officer (BEO) to ensure all is well. The recently implemented Right to Education Act reinforces the role of these officers in the smooth functioning of a private institution. The buck clearly stops with them.

NAGPUR: Maharashtra Rajya Shikshan Sanstha Mahamandal (MRSSM), the Pune-based powerful union representing school managements in state, has expressed unhappiness with state government over implementation of the Right To Education (RTE) Act.

RTE has a wide ambit, from admission to infrastructure, but MRSSM's biggest gripe is with the way the education pattern in state is being altered to realign with that of the Act. For decades, the state has followed the 4+3+3 (primary, middle and high school) pattern but now it has been changed to 5+3+2.

RANCHI: The human resource development department will soon make it mandatory for city-based private schools to upload all information, including admission procedure, for proper implementation of Right to Education Act.

All private schools in the city will get separate login IDs and passwords for uploading information like number of students from economically weak background, details of affiliation, number of teachers and their qualification, among others.